New DOE Grid Storage Demonstration Project
East Penn Manufacturing and its subsidiary Ecoult have announced the newest project in the US Department of Energy’s Smart Grid Storage Demonstration Program.
The PJM (Pennsylvania-Jersey-Maryland Interconnection) Regulation Services project in Lyon Station, Pennsylvania, is powered by the Deka UltraBattery technology. It will provide 3MW of continuous frequency regulation services to the grid of PJM Interconnection, the largest Regional Transmission Organization/Independent System Operator in the US. The new system will also be used for peak demand management services to the local utility, Met-Ed, a FirstEnergy Company.
Regulation services are necessary so that the grid can maintain a constant frequency, providing fine-tuning in real time to match supply and demand. With renewable portfolio standards coming into effect, the large-scale integration of intermittent wind and solar generation introduces more variability in power generation, resulting in an increasing need for regulation services.
The Deka UltraBattery, invented by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), can meet the sudden frequency regulation and ramp rate control requirements of the modern electricity grid. Unlike gas turbines or coal generation plants, which may have a ramp response of between five and 10 minutes, the UltraBattery technology is able to release or absorb power within seconds without creating CO2 emissions.
The energy storage system is the second one to be launched out of 16 energy storage projects selected by the US Department of Energy under its Smart Grid Storage Demonstration Program. The US Department of Energy supported the project with $2.2 million of funding under its American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
The PJM demonstration project has been implemented in both a building and a containerized format to demonstrate the modularity and mobility of the storage solutions. It connects to the grid from inside the East Penn Manufacturing site in Lyon Station, Pennsylvania.
Ecoult engineered and implemented the energy storage system, and developed the platform for the UltraBattery Energy Resource (UBer) that controls both the batteries and the power conversion system.
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